


Pseudo

by Jothowrote



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Animal Transformation, Attempted Sexual Assault, Drink Spiking, F/F, Hamid turns into a full dragon, M/M, Magical Realism, Modern AU, but only a small one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jothowrote/pseuds/Jothowrote
Summary: TW: Attempted sexual assault, drink spiking, drunkeness, traumaOn a night out with his friends, Hamid finds himself much too drunk and in trouble. In his inebriated state, he reacts instinctually to protect himself and becomes a lot more... dragony than usual.The next morning, in a probably completely unrelated event, Zolf finds a larger than average pseudodragon in his bath...Magical Realism Modern AU where Hamid accidentally turns into a little dragon, and Zolf accidentally adopts a little dragon.
Relationships: Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan/Zolf Smith
Comments: 14
Kudos: 57





	Pseudo

**Author's Note:**

> Check the warnings here. There's nothing explicit in the attempted sexual assault- it doesn't go far enough - but look after yourselves if this kind of thing upsets you. 
> 
> Everyone's in 2020 Zoscar heaven and I'm stuck in 2017 Zamid hell. I am old and set in my ways, I am sorry. I wrote this ages ago, before nano, but haven't had the confidence to post it until now. I hope you all enjoy!

Hamid felt drunk. Very drunk. He sat in the toilet stall with his head in his hands, trying to stay upright as the world slowly turned beneath him. He took a few deep breaths, attempting to calm his racing heart. It didn’t help.

The world kept spinning. Hamid held in a groan. Time was passing strangely, slow as treacle with huge leaps into the future, his drunken brain unable to process the links between moments. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting on the loo, trying to get a hold of his faculties. But he knew he couldn’t hide in the bathroom forever, so eventually he stood, opened the cubicle door, and staggered out to the sinks. Blessedly the bathroom was empty, so no one saw as he lurched across the room and grasped at the sink to steady himself.

Beneath the drunken haze, Hamid felt hotly, painfully embarrassed. It had been a while since he’d managed to go off the rails – not since his break-up, in fact, not since he had found his new friends. Recently he’d been tempted, though he didn’t like to admit it to himself. He was hurting still from his argument with Zolf – they always argued, but this one had stuck. He hadn’t seen Zolf in months. He missed him painfully. 

Speaking of his friends – Azu, Sasha, and Cel were all in the bar, no doubt wondering why he was taking so long in the bathroom. Hamid splashed some water on his face to try and clear his head. He really only succeeded in getting water all down his expensive shirt, but he told himself he felt better. He prestidigitated his eye-liner perfect again and wobbled his way back out into the bar.

‘Hamid! There you are.’ Azu must have been waiting right outside the door, or at least coming to check on him, because she was suddenly right in front of him as he stumbled out through the men’s toilet door.

‘Uh, yeah,’ he said, swaying on his feet.

‘Are you okay, Hamid?’ Azu asked. Her voice was strangely muted – she sounded like she was very far away.

Hamid smiled widely, hoping that his freshly prestidigitated face hid his inebriation. 

‘Just thinking about going outside,’ he said, focusing very carefully on not slurring his words. ‘Get some… fresh air.’

‘Alright,’ Azu said. ‘Do you want company?’

‘No, thanks – I won’t be long,’ Hamid said, still smiling, trying to keep his eyes focussed on Azu.

‘If you’re sure,’ Azu said. She reached out and put a large, comforting hand on his shoulder. Hamid swayed into it slightly, enjoying the strength and support. ‘Don’t be too long.’

‘I won’t,’ he said.

It took all of his concentration to weave his way around busy tables to the small garden and smoking area out the back of the bar. He was aware of Azu’s eyes on his back, but he made it out the door without embarrassing himself. The smoking area was empty, and Hamid took a big breath of cool night air. It helped briefly to clear the fog of alcohol in his brain, though it soon encroached once more.

Hamid leant against the temporary metal barrier separating the smoking area from the small side street it backed onto. The metal was cool against his hot forehead, and he sighed heavily. He felt awful – ill and tired and embarrassed for letting himself get into this state. He didn’t want to ruin the others’ night. He didn’t want them to have to look after him, have to take him home early because he’d forgotten his limits and drunk himself into a mess.

Hamid wondered why he’d drunk so much. He cast his mind back, though the memories were slipping out of his grasp like soap. He didn’t remember drinking all that much. In fact, he was almost certain that he’d only had two drinks the entire night – the margarita from the bar, and a tequila shot from the stack of four that Cel had bought. He could remember the burst of lime on his tongue after the shot, bright and sharp.

He leaned more of his weight against the barrier, trying not to cry or vomit – both seemed very likely. Was he really so bad off as to have forgotten how much he’d been drinking? He’d thought he’d been getting better, but now it felt like he’d fallen back into his old ways. And to not even remember what he’d drunk…

The barrier shifted and Hamid fell, hard, on the floor. He caught himself with his hands and knees and sat up, examining his scraped, stinging palms with vague nausea. He rubbed them on his shirt, hissing at the pain.

‘Hey, you alright?’ asked an unfamiliar voice. Hamid opened his mouth to reply, but then strong hands wrapped around his upper arms and lifted him back to his feet.

‘I think…’ he slurred, as the world spun around him. He suddenly felt very tired, his limbs heavy and unresponsive as though gravity was working overtime. He swayed forwards.

‘Whoops, there we go,’ said the voice, and Hamid was lifted up.

‘Wha…‘ he mumbled, trying vainly to open his eyes. His eyelids felt like they’d been stapled shut. It took an enormous effort to drag them apart. ‘Who…’

‘Shh,’ said the voice he didn’t know. ‘Shh.’

Hamid felt his body be hoisted and his stomach rolled uncomfortably with the movement. He tried to squirm free his arms were heavy and unresponsive and lolled uselessly. Instead he could do nothing but fight to keep his eyes open and let himself be carried somewhere unknown. It was still dark and cool, so he knew he was still outside. The sounds of the bar were growing quieter. Hamid struggled to get his brain in gear even as his body betrayed him and refused to move.

It was when he was put back on his feet and shoved against a rough, damp wall that something in Hamid’s brain switched on and he began to panic. Large, clumsy hands were wrapping into his clothes and tugging hard, and there was hot breath against his face. Hamid tried to push away but a hand grabbed his head and slammed it back against the wall even as another hand began to undo his trousers.

Pain and panic burst bright at the back of his head, and Hamid felt something snap in his brain, overpowering the alcohol in his system. He screamed hoarsely, hot fire spilling from between his lips, and he shoved forwards with hands that were elongating into sharp, curving claws. The body against his fell away with a grunt. Hamid screamed again as something in him cracked, as his body began to change. His screams morphed into growls and snarls as he fell to the ground on all fours, his body prickling with heat.

He didn’t hear the sounds of running footsteps over the pain of transformation, and afterwards, he knew nothing at all.

*

The small dragon awoke with a start. The sky was dark and around him it was cold and still, so he uncurled himself from the damp hard floor and looked around, sniffing the air. There were the sounds nearby – loud sounds and strong smells. Sounds and smells he didn’t like. He scrambled to his feet and shook out his wings, wobbling a little as he worked out his balance.

His head hurt. His feet were sore, and stung with every cautious step. The dragon whined a little in pain, coughing out smoke and rumbling unhappily. Then he lifted his nose and sniffed the air.

There was rain on the way. He needed to find shelter. He needed to get safe.

He staggered a little and flapped his wings experimentally, before attempting to fly. He hit the ground hard a little further away and curled up in pain for a little while. His head hurt. His feet hurt. He needed somewhere safe. 

The little dragon didn’t know much – his brain was simple, an intelligent animal mind perhaps, though still just an animal – but he had vague recollections of the smell and location of a place that felt safe. A place that felt like home. So he picked himself up, licked at the sore scratches on his feet, and trotted off into the night.

A few aborted attempts at flying and a long walk later, and the little dragon found himself outside a small house. There was a porch light that turned on as the dragon approached, which scared him into hiding in a nearby bush until it turned off again. The little dragon sneaked his way around the side of the house and into the small garden. There was an open window at the back, so the dragon spread out his wings and flapped unsteadily into the sky.

It took him a few attempts and much scrabbling, but eventually he made it through the little window. He immediately fell into the bath with a thud.

He lay still for a minute, waiting to see if he had been heard. The rest of the house remained silent and dark, however, so the dragon clawed his way out of the bath with the help of the shower curtain and skittered quietly out into the hall beyond.

The dragon paused and sniffed the air. There was a comforting scent that grew stronger as he snuck closer to a half-open door. The dragon carefully shouldered his way through the door and was greeted with more of that comforting scent, accompanied now by the sounds of gentle snores. The dragon crept towards the bed in the centre of the room and watched as the duvet-covered mound rose and fell in time with the snores.

There was a pile of clothes, drenched in that scent, heaped on a chair in the corner. The dragon carefully dragged them off to beneath the bed, where it was dark and safe, and crafted a small, soft nest. Then, after curling up in that scent that made him feel safe, the dragon settled down to sleep.

*

Zolf woke to the screeching of his alarm clock. Wearily he freed his hand from his duvet and smashed down on the off button, before groaning and rubbing his hand over his face. Switching on the light was painful and he lay still for a while, waiting for his eyesight to adjust.

It took him some time to swing his leg and stump over the side of the bed, and even longer to attach his prosthetic with tired, unresponsive fingers. He staggered out of his bedroom and across the hall to the bathroom, where he reached over the bath to turn on the shower.

Then he paused, fingers hovering over the button, as he saw the state of the bathroom. Zolf ran a hand down the shower curtain – it was old and getting mouldy at the edges, but he was certain that when he’d gone to bed the night before the shower curtain had been in one piece. Now it was in tatters, and the strips fluttered gently in the breeze from the open window.

Zolf frowned, and his fingers followed the ruined curtain down the bath, where he could see deep scratch marks in the white sides. He felt along the edge of one – it was a deep gouge, made by something sharp and strong. There was dark blood crusted around the scratches and speckled across the white surface of the bath.

The breeze ruffled his beard, so he braided it thoughtfully as he stared at the open window. He grabbed a hair tie from the bathroom cabinet before slowly walking out of the bathroom. There were small patches of blood on his carpet leading directly into his bedroom, and Zolf slowly pushed the door fully open and peered inside.

‘Hello?’ he hazarded, as he edged his way into the room. He was acutely aware that he was just in his pants, but when he reached for yesterday’s clothes the chair was empty. He pulled on his dressing gown instead and caught sight of a sock lying stranded in the middle of the carpet. Knees and prosthetic creaking, Zolf bent down to pick it up.

A hiss emanated from beneath his bed. Zolf peered under and could just about make out two burning orange eyes staring back at him.

‘Hello,’ Zolf said, awkwardly. ‘Who are you, then?’

The hissing faltered. Zolf took that as a good sign and shuffled closer.

The hissing started up again, louder than before.

‘Okay, alright,’ Zolf said, slowly. He held out a hand, moving it close to the dark space beneath the bed. ‘It’s alright,’ he said again, gently, in the tone he usually employed for scared children on his ward. He kept his hand very still and the hissing calmed down again. The eyes burnt brightly in the dark, and slowly a brass muzzle began to poke its way out of the shadows. Zolf kept very still as what looked like a pseudodragon slunk out from beneath his bed and sniffed his fingers cautiously. Zolf’s favourite jumper was draped across its back, snagged on the ridge of darker scales along its spine.

The pseudodragon gently pressed its warm nose against Zolf’s hand, making a small rasping noise that sounded not unlike a purr. It was large, for a pseudodragon. Zolf wasn’t an expert, but the others he’d seen before had been around the size of a housecat, and usually were able to perch on the shoulders of their chosen companions. This pseudodragon was the size of a dog, though much larger than Bertie’s pugweiler. Zolf wasn’t sure he’d want this particular pseudodragon on his shoulders, even if it was lighter than it looked – its claws looked wickedly sharp and had certainly ruined his bath. He didn’t want to see what they could do to cloth and skin.

‘Where did you come from?’ Zolf asked quietly, lifting his hand so that the pseudodragon could more easily rub against it. It kept up the strange purring and crept even closer, grating its scales along Zolf’s arm. Zolf lifted his other hand to scratch behind the pseudodragon’s ears, but his fingers caught on crusted blood and the dragon hissed and retreated hurriedly back beneath the bed.

Zolf stared at the dried blood on his fingers.

‘Someone hurt you,’ he said, slowly. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, in response to the hissing. He wiggled his fingers at the pseudodragon, trying to entice it back out and hoping that it didn’t take this as an excuse to start chomping on his hand. ‘I can help,’ he said. 

He hoped that pseudodragons, as magical creatures, could understand common – magical creatures tended to be a rung of intelligence above other animals and could sometimes understand some languages even if they couldn’t actually speak in any language other than their own animalistic one. Zolf tried again. 

‘I can heal you,’ he said, leaning a little closer, making sure to keep his movements slow and deliberate. ‘I promise.’

The tip of a brass muzzle appeared out of the darkness once more, sniffing. Zolf waited patiently until it crept up to his hand and rubbed against it cautiously, and then he called upon his divine magic and cast a healing spell.

The effect was instantaneous – the dragon started purring again, as loud as a lawnmower, and it scurried out from under the bed and attempted to climb into Zolf’s lap. Zolf had been squatting down to peer under the bed and the sudden weight of the dragon on his legs knocked him onto his back. The dragon trilled loudly, apparently very pleased with this development, and proceeded to climb onto Zolf’s chest and settle down. The purring increased another level.

‘What happened to you, then?’ Zolf asked, running a hand over the back of the dragon’s head and inspecting its claws. It seemed perfectly happy to let him touch it, at least now that it was healed, and so Zolf was able to feel along the edge of the remainder of the cut on its head and the scabs left on the soft parts of its feet. The dragon trilled, enjoying the attention.

Zolf let this continue for a little while, until he caught sight of his alarm clock and realised that he didn’t have long before he needed to go to work.

‘Right. I don’t know about you, but I need breakfast,’ he said, sitting up. The dragon slid off his chest but stayed close against his legs, trilling loudly. It followed him closely down the stairs and into his kitchen.

Zolf stared into his fridge. He wasn’t entirely sure what pseudodragons ate. His hand twitched towards his phone, but he didn’t know anyone he could ask. The only person who might have known would be Hamid, but Zolf hadn’t spoken to Hamid since their massive argument a few months back. Zolf didn’t really want to break their unhappy détente by asking for pseudodragon facts.

He settled for googling on his phone as he ate, while the pseudodragon wove in-between his leg and his prosthetic, alternating between trilling and purring. Google wasn’t very helpful – pseudodragons tended to bond to wizards, or other powerful magic users, and wizards were notoriously cagey with their knowledge. He assumed that, as a small carnivore, the pseudodragon would most likely be a meat-eater. Zolf didn’t have any meat in his fridge, but he did have some salmon leftovers. The pseudodragon sniffed it but refused to eat it until Zolf put it on a plate.

‘I see you’ve got some airs and graces,’ Zolf said, as he watched the dragon eat the salmon very delicately, picking it apart with its claws. It trilled at him as it licked its chops, the salmon gone, and jumped up onto the table to lick the last of the milk out of Zolf’s cereal bowl. Zolf just watched it, thinking hard.

‘I’ve got to go to work, soon,’ he told it, looking directly into its intelligent orange eyes. ‘You’re welcome to stay here, as long as you’re careful with those claws.’

The dragon cocked its head, and Zolf could swear that it understood.

‘I’ll try and bring you back some proper food,’ he told it. 

Zolf forwent a shower and had a wash in the sink instead, since he worried about how deep the clawed marks were in the side of the bath. He made a mental note to call a handyman as he dug out some fresh clothes – all his on-the-go clothes had been appropriated by his guest. The dragon had followed him upstairs and was once again beneath the bed, tucked up in its nest crafted from Zolf’s hoodies and old t-shirts. It purred the whole time Zolf was getting ready, and it followed him back down the stairs when he was getting ready to leave.

‘I’ll be back later,’ he promised it, wondering whether he was being a bit weird by talking to it like it was a person, though he was not able to shake the impression that it understood every word he said. He locked his front door, feeling a bit guilty at shutting it in his house, and caught the bus to the hospital.

He thought about the pseudodragon all throughout the morning as he dealt with his patients, and in his lunch break he finally bit the bullet and phoned Wilde.

‘You’re sure?’ Wilde said.

‘I’m not an idiot, Wilde,’ Zolf said. ‘I can tell a dog apart from a pseudodragon. It’s a big one, too.’

‘Highly unlikely that it was roaming around by itself for long,’ Wilde said. ‘It didn’t have a collar, or any kind of identification?’

‘No, nothing,’ Zolf said. ‘Funnily enough. But… it was hurt. Something had cut the back of its head, and its feet were bleeding.’

‘It let you heal it, though?’

‘Yeah, eventually,’ Zolf said. ‘After that, it seemed very friendly.’

‘Hmm. Most likely it belongs to someone, then,’ Wilde hummed thoughtfully.

‘If it does, and they hurt it, then they don’t deserve it,’ Zolf said sharply.

‘Of course not.’ Wilde’s tone was both soothing and patronising. Zolf bristled.

‘It was hiding under my bed, hurt and scared,’ he said, loudly. ‘Something bad happened to it, and it feels safe with me.’

‘Yes, you’d better hang on to it,’ Wilde said, and he sounded amused. ‘I’ll ask around the university – if it does belong to someone, that’s the most likely place they’ll be. Send me a photo when you get back.’

‘Hmm,’ Zolf said. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of that – what if Wilde found the owner and they wanted the little dragon back? What if they hurt it again?

‘In the meantime, you’ll want to feed it like any other carnivore. Meat and such,’ Wilde continued. ‘Though they do like a bit of milk and butter.’

Zolf thought back to the dragon finishing off his milk.

‘Right. Thanks, Wilde,’ he said.

‘Any time,’ Wilde said, before he hung up.

Zolf ate his sandwich thoughtfully, thinking about the brass pseudodragon and wondering what it was up to. He hoped he wasn’t going to come home to a destroyed sofa.

His afternoon was uneventful, though in the canteen he heard some horror stories from his fellow nurses about their awful new patients. Two patients had attempted to discharge themselves too soon, though both had been coaxed back to their beds. One woman refused all care but also refused to leave the hospital, and another tore off a nurse’s lanyard to stop them from leaving to attend other patients. Zolf thanked the gods for the quick release catch. One guy, apparently raving mad and angry, kept talking about being attacked by a beast – his nurse spoke disparagingly about his drunken ranting and put it down to him most likely getting on the wrong side of a dog while off his face on alcohol. Zolf was grateful for his own quiet, polite patients, and commiserated with the others.

After his shift he swung by the supermarket before heading home, stocking up on meat, fish, and butter. He even bought a little pot of double cream, thinking it would be a nice treat.

‘Hello?’ he called, as he opened his front door. The house was quiet, and he started to worry as he lugged his heavy shopping bags through the hall and into the kitchen.

‘Hello?’ he called up the stairs.

There was a faint trilling sound, and the sound of scurrying claws, and then the pseudodragon trotted out of Zolf’s bedroom and down the stairs, purring as it went. Zolf knelt down to greet it and it rubbed its hot, scaley muzzle against his beard.

‘Napping the day away, I take it?’ Zolf said. He got a trill in response. The dragon nuzzled his face for a few seconds before pausing and sniffing the air.

‘That’s your food,’ Zolf told it, as it bounded off towards the kitchen to inspect the shopping bags. It watched as he put the food away, trilling occasionally. Zolf felt guilty about its meagre salmon breakfast, so he opened one of the nicer steaks.

‘A plate for your majesty,’ he said, placing it down with a flourish. The pseudodragon trilled before eating. Zolf stood back and snapped a photo to send to Wilde.

Even though the pseudodragon was probably very hungry from not eating all day, it ate again with a dainty air that Zolf found surprising. Even when the steak was gone and Zolf was cooking his own food, the pseudodragon didn’t beg for more and be a nuisance like Brutor always was. Instead it licked its lips, curled up near the warm radiator, and watched Zolf through sleepy eyes. 

Zolf discovered that his bathroom window had been forced open when he went upstairs and realised that the dragon had very politely used it to go outside into Zolf’s small, scrubby garden and do its business. Zolf wondered whether that would boost his ailing rhododendrons – dragon manure was supposed to be potent stuff. The window wasn’t too broken but the lock was busted, so Zolf added it to the list of things that needed fixing.

Later, after Zolf had cleaned up, booked a handyman, and settled down in front of the TV, the dragon jumped up beside him on the sofa and curled into a ball. Throughout the evening it edged closer to Zolf and ended up with its head pressed against his thigh, purring like an engine as Zolf absently scratched the scales behind its ears.

‘Why would anyone want to hurt you?’ Zolf asked as he scratched a particularly good spot and the dragon’s wings twitched in pleasure.

His phone rang just as he was going to bed. Wilde flashed up the screen, and Zolf answered with dread in his throat.

‘Any news?’ he asked, before Wilde could speak.

‘Nothing.’ Wilde sounded frustrated. ‘No one is missing a pseudodragon and nobody recognises him.’

‘Him?’ Zolf asked, stroking its ears softly.

‘Him. Even Eldarion doesn’t know where he might have come from. Though apparently he’s unlikely to be wild, or lost – he looks very well fed.’

‘He’s not fat,’ Zolf said, defensively. ‘He’s just big.’ He stroked down the dragon’s back leg, feeling the corded muscle there. 

‘He’s huge, for a pseudodragon,’ Wilde pointed out. ‘And they’re rarely brass.’

‘Well, I don’t mind looking after him for a bit longer,’ Zolf said, scratching near the smaller scales at the root of its tail. It trilled gently; its eyes closed in ecstasy.

‘Zolf – you can’t keep him forever, especially if he’s bonded,’ Wilde said, softly. ‘You know that. Eldarion’s sending his picture round her circles, someone will recognise him eventually.’

‘He might not be anyone’s,’ Zolf argued. 

‘Of that age and size? It’s highly unlikely. Zolf, I know times have been… hard, lately, and you are spending a lot of time on your own, but it might be better if you got something a little easier to look after. Like a cat.’

‘I’m not _lonely_ ,’ Zolf argued. ‘And he’s been perfectly easy to look after so far.’ Zolf decided not to mention the damaged bath and shower curtain, or the extremely expensive steak, or the growing mound of clothes beneath his bed.

‘Zolf.’ Wilde sounded pitying. Zolf hated it. ‘When’s the last time you went out with friends? Did something outside your house? Apart from work,’ he added hastily.

Zolf frowned. He couldn’t actually remember. Since his and Hamid’s big argument, he’d barely seen Sasha and Cel. Their friends had refused to take sides, though Azu and Grizzop had always been more Hamid’s friends than his. Since Sasha and Grizzop lived together, and Cel was dating Azu, Zolf had just kind of… stopped seeing them. 

He was busy at work, he told himself. Sasha won’t want to meet up with just me, he thought. And so the past few months had been quiet.

At least there was still Wilde, though he was even more busy than Zolf.

‘I’ve been busy,’ Zolf said, ignoring how hollow the words sounded. ‘And…’

He must have sounded sad, because the pseudodragon edged further onto his lap and purred up a storm. Tears pricked at his eyes and he blinked them furiously away.

‘Zolf,’ Wilde said, ‘you know, I’m sure if you just talked to Hamid –‘

Zolf’s phone began to chime, indicating he was getting another call. Saved by the bell, he thought.

‘I better go, there’s someone waiting on the line,’ Zolf said, hastily, ending the call with Wilde and switching over, not stopping to think who it could be.

‘Zolf,’ said Sasha’s voice. ‘That you?’

‘Sasha?’ Zolf asked. ‘What’s the matter? Are you alright?’

Her voice was wobbly and thick, and she was sniffed loudly, as though she might have been crying.

‘Uh, yeah,’ she said, unconvincingly. ‘Um, you ‘aven’t seen Hamid recently, at all, have you?’

‘No,’ Zolf said. ‘He’s still angry at me over the whole Bertie situation. Why?’

‘He… he’s gone missing,’ Sasha said.

Zolf’s blood went cold.

‘Missing?’ he asked, quietly. ‘What do you mean?’

‘He vanished last night – we thought he’d gone ‘ome, Azu said he was pretty hammered, but he’s not at his flat and he’s not answering his phone. Grizzop’s trying to get the police involved but they won’t track his phone ‘til he’s been missing for over twenty-four hours.’

Zolf stood, too anxious to remain sitting. He dislodged the dragon, who grumbled loudly at the inconvenience.

‘Can’t you track it?’ he asked. ‘I thought you had tech like that for your PI work. Or magic? Grizzop must have something Artemis-related.’

Sasha sighed.

‘We wanted to check with you first,’ she said.

‘Well, he’s not with me,’ Zolf said. ‘Why would he be?’

‘We thought… it doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Let us know if you hear from ‘im. Azu’s going crazy worryin’.’

She hung up abruptly, leaving Zolf with his racing thoughts. It was unusual for Hamid to go a long time without contact – he was generally glued to his phone and all his various apps. It had been one of the many subjects they had always argued about.

Zolf clutched his phone tight in his hand. He was still standing up next to his sofa. He hoped Hamid was okay. If something had happened to him, something bad, and Zolf never got a chance to talk to him again, to apologise… Zolf didn’t know what he would do.

The pseudodragon trilled, staring at him with inquisitive orange eyes. Zolf sat back down heavily and reached out to stroke it.

‘Hamid would love you,’ he said. ‘He loves magic, magical things.’

Another trill; the dragon closed his eyes in apparent bliss.

‘He’d know how to look after you,’ Zolf said, softly. ‘I have no idea what I’m doing.’

The dragon just purred harder and wiggled close.

Zolf slept poorly that night, tossing and turning, his mind plagued with visions of Hamid hurt and alone and scared. One particularly painful dream showed Hamid laughing with his old friends, Gideon and Liliana, one arm around each of them. This dream Hamid wore a cruel expression and spoke haughtily to Zolf.

‘You see? I never should have sunk so low as to be friends with _you_.’

Gideon and Liliana laughed high and sharp, and Zolf stared hopelessly at this strange version of his friend, looking desperately for some sign of the kind, gentle soul he knew to be there.

He woke with a start, disoriented in the dark, to a strange wet sensation on his face. There was a small trill and a gentle purr, and Zolf realised that the pseudodragon had climbed onto the bed and was licking his face.

‘D’you like the tears?’ Zolf asked, sitting up and swiping at his face. ‘Nice and salty?’

The dragon trilled and nosed its way under Zolf’s hands. Zolf stroked it absently, thinking about his dreams. He had been so resolutely not thinking about Hamid for so long that Sasha’s call seemed to have opened the floodgates in his subconscious.

He lay back in bed with a sigh, and the dragon shuffled over, lying close, warm as a little furnace and purring like a motorbike.

‘I’m sure Hamid’s safe,’ he said, mostly to himself. The purring grew louder.

He worried until he fell asleep.

*

It was two summers previous, and Sasha and Zolf had both booked time off their respective jobs to go on holiday with Hamid. Hamid had been going stir-crazy since term had finished at the university and he had nothing to do all day while Sasha was at the antiques shop and Zolf was at the hospital. So he had booked a week-long trip to the south of France, crafted an itinerary full of exciting activities, and convinced them both to join him. He’d even offered to pay for their accommodation – Sasha had happily agreed, though Zolf’s pride hadn’t let him do the same. Zolf did capitulate into letting Hamid pay for the rental car, though.

After a short boat trip from Dover to Calais, Sasha’s eyes lit up at the sight of the rental car and immediately bagsied the driver’s seat. Her happiness was only slightly dampened by Bertie’s sudden appearance, complete with dog in papoose.

‘I’m sorry,’ Hamid said to Zolf, later, as they stopped yet again by the side of the road so “Brutor” could have another comfort break. Hamid was wringing his hands and was clearly very stressed. ‘I just… Bertie _did_ just have a bad break-up, and he loves travelling…’

Zolf had to admit that Wilde had behaved abominably throughout the whole thing, and for once Bertie had not been at fault. But he didn’t like admitting it.

‘It’s fine,’ Zolf sighed. ‘As long as we do get some time with just us three.’

Sasha grunted from the front seat. She was drumming her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, staring at the point in the treeline where Bertie and Brutor had disappeared.

They did end up doing most of the activities without Bertie, as he met a small group of skiers in the first bar they went to and latched on to them instead. Ostensibly Bertie pointed out that he enjoyed skiing more than the activities Hamid booked, which included historical tours of the nearby towns and visiting a perfume factory. The main reason, Hamid told Zolf and Sasha later, was that one of the skiers was literally the most handsome man Hamid had ever seen, and Bertie was following him around like a dazed puppy.

‘Well, if that’s what he wants to do,’ Zolf said magnanimously. ‘He did have a bad break-up, after all.’

This all came back to bite them after the climbing accident.

It was one of the few activities Hamid had planned that involved physical exercise and though they had been wearing safety gear, their helmets didn’t stop the rock coming down and pinning Zolf’s one good leg. Sasha had run off to get help while muttering about how Bertie would actually be useful for once and Hamid, in his attempt to free Zolf’s leg, had inadvertently loosened more rocks and had his left arm crushed for his troubles. It knocked him clean unconscious, and for a few horrifying seconds Zolf had thought Hamid was dead. 

Zolf did his best to heal them both while they waited for help, and he tried to calm Hamid down when he woke up and went into shock, but nothing really helped until Sasha came back with local reinforcements. Zolf’s good leg was cleanly broken and healed well, thanks to Zolf’s channelled positive energy, though he had to use crutches for a while to get around. Hamid’s arm healed well too, but the nerve damage lasted a long time and a large, twisted scar was left behind. Hamid took to wearing long sleeves after that.

Zolf dreamt that he was back below that cliff face, his good leg numb under the weight of the fallen rocks. He could smell the dust kicked up from the loosened stones and the heavy fragrance of the lavender fields nearby, laced with the tangy smell of blood. Hamid was lying beside him, pale as death and barely breathing, his eyes partly open and unseeing.

Zolf tried to reach for him, pulling up the divine magic into his hands and straining over to Hamid’s limp form. He couldn’t quite reach – his leg was pinned and he couldn’t move at all. He could only watch as the blood pooled from beneath the rock on Hamid’s arm and Hamid’s face grew paler.

He woke up crying and gasping, and the pseudodragon was purring beside him again and licking his tears away.

*

The next day the handyman texted to say he had a free slot and could come round and look at the bath, so Zolf left his front door key under a flowerpot and took the pseudodragon with him to work. As a magical creature, the little dragon was given more leeway than an average animal, and Zolf took him around the children’s wards at lunchtime.

The little dragon put up with their fussing and patting very well, and even purred for them a little.

‘What’s his name?’ asked a little girl. 

‘I don’t know,’ Zolf said. ‘He was lost – I’m looking after him until his companion finds him again.’

‘He doesn’t look lost,’ said the girl, frowning down at where the dragon was hugging close to Zolf’s real leg. 

‘Why don’t you give him some butter?’ Zolf said quickly, which successfully distracted her.

Wilde phoned him at lunch to tell him there was no news on the dragon and to ask if he’d heard the news about Hamid. Zolf had panicked at the sight of Wilde’s caller ID, thinking that the original companion of the pseudodragon had turned up, and so he was snappish and brisk.

‘I’m sure Hamid just went home with someone and stayed a while,’ Zolf said. He felt angry all of a sudden. Why did Hamid always have to cause so much drama? Why did he have to go missing before Zolf could apologise?

‘For two nights, without his fancy face wash?’ Wilde pointed out. ‘Not answering his phone?’

‘Maybe he’s wrapped up in some little love nest,’ Zolf said, not a little bitterly. His anger frothed in his gut. ‘It wouldn’t be completely out of character,’ he continued, then ‘ow,’ he snapped, as the pseudodragon nipped at his thigh. 

It had been the first time the dragon had consciously hurt him – Zolf’s anger overflowed.

‘So you’ve decided you don’t like me anymore, have you? Well, join the club!’ he yelled at it.

He regretted it immediately – the little dragon flinched away from his shouting and scurried down the corridor, almost bowling over one of the orderlies as it skidded round the corner.

Zolf stared after him, phone still in his hand.

‘What was that?’ Wilde asked. Zolf quietly pressed the end call button and stared down the empty corridor, self-hatred suddenly rising to replace the anger that had burnt so strongly less than thirty seconds ago.

His phone rang again.

‘Zolf? Are you free?’ It was Sasha – her voice cracked as she spoke and she sounded thick and nasal, as thought she’d been crying again.

‘I’ve just finished my shift,’ he said, still staring at where the pseudodragon had vanished around the corner.

‘Oh, good,’ she said. ‘We… we traced Hamid’s phone. Zolf…’

‘Where was it? What’s happened?’ Zolf asked frantically.

‘Just… come to the PI office,’ Sasha said, hanging up before Zolf could ask any more questions.

He splurged on a taxi and arrived at Rackett and Amsterdam, Private Investigators, in less than twenty minutes.

‘What’s happened?’ he asked, pushing through the open office door. Everyone was there – Grizzop was fiddling with the large whiteboard, Azu was sitting in Sasha’s desk chair with her head in her hands, and Cel was sitting on Sasha’s desk, their hand on Azu’s shoulder. Sasha greeted Zolf at the door, her eyes bright with tears.

‘We found Hamid’s phone in an alley, near the bar,’ Sasha said, choked. She pointed to a photo tacked up on the whiteboard – the phone was lying on the crumbled tarmac, its screen smashed beyond saving. It was Hamid’s – Zolf recognised the purple case, the glittery sticker on the side. The phone itself was sealed in a plastic evidence bag and looked worse for wear. Hamid would be upset, Zolf thought vaguely. Hamid loved his phone.

‘By the phone – that’s…’ he said, tailing off as he looked closer at the photo of the phone in the alley. It wasn’t the only thing on the dirty concrete.

‘They’re ripped clothes,’ Azu said. He’d never heard her gentle voice sound so angry before. ‘Hamid’s clothes, from that night at the bar.’

The enormity of the situation hit Zolf suddenly, like a speeding train. He staggered to a nearby sofa – the plush one for clients – and sank down heavily.

‘We have no idea where he is, but we at least know where he went after the bar,’ Grizzop said.

‘He couldn’t have got there by himself,’ Azu said, shaking her head. ‘He was very drunk. He was trying to hide it…’

‘I’m so sure he only had two drinks,’ Cel said, frowning. ‘That’s why we weren’t worried to let him go off on his own. He had a margarita when he arrived, and then a shot when we all had one. I didn’t see him with anything else.’

‘Hamid doesn’t drink much anymore,’ Zolf added. He and Sasha had been there right at the beginning of Hamid’s journey – all three of them had met just after Hamid’s split from Liliana and Gideon. Azu, Cel, and Grizzop, who came along later, wouldn’t remember just how hard Hamid had to work at the start to not fall back into his old habits, and just how hard Zolf and Sasha tried to help him. ‘We would talk about it, before…. He said he used to drink a lot with his old friends, and it made him do stupid things. He said he gave it up after leaving them – and that he didn’t need it, with us.’

‘He might have relapsed,’ Grizzop offered. ‘We don’t know how much he had before he met you at the bar.’

‘He didn’t seem that drunk,’ Azu insisted, ‘until he came out of the bathroom. It was like it hit him all at once.’

There was silence as the implication settled.

‘Do you think… his drink was spiked?’ Zolf said, slowly. 

‘It would explain how drunk he was, so fast,’ Azu said, slowly. ‘And why he was acting so strangely.’

‘He went out to the smoking area, right?’ Sasha said, suddenly animated. She was looking at Grizzop, and they both seemed to have connected the same dots. 

‘Whoever spiked his drink probably followed him out, and helped him to there,’ said Grizzop, pointing at the photo of the alley, Hamid’s cracked phone, and the ragged scraps of clothing.

Zolf couldn’t stop staring at the photo. His mind was in turmoil. The others were still talking around him – Grizzop in particular was loud and animated, waving his hands in the air emphatically. But their voices had turned into just one low background drone as a high-pitched buzz rang in Zolf’s ears. 

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, not contributing to the conversation, but he only broke out of his fugue state when a large, gentle hand landed on his shoulder. He looked up into Azu’s kindly face.

‘Do you want to come with us?’ she asked.

Looking around, Zolf saw that everyone was putting on their coats and collecting their bags.

‘Where?’ he asked. ‘Sorry, I… uh…’ 

‘It’s okay,’ Azu said.

It wasn’t okay. He could see dried tear tracks on Azu’s face. Here was Zolf, falling apart, and he hadn’t even spoken to Hamid for three months. Azu was the one who’d been with him this whole time, no doubt, being his friend while Zolf couldn’t. He wasn’t allowed to fall apart – he had no right to.

‘We’re going back to the bar,’ Sasha said, sloping over as she pulled on her customary leather jacket. ‘Gonna see if they had CCTV out in the smoking area. Whoever took ‘im might have been caught on camera.’

‘He… someone took him?’ Zolf asked, feeling stupid. His heart was throbbing in his throat and he felt dizzy. He thought of Hamid, alone and afraid and hurt. He’d never even had the chance to apologise.

‘We don’t know,’ Grizzop said, sharply. ‘Let’s get a move on.’

Zolf tailed along after them all, clambering awkwardly into the back of Cel and Azu’s car as they followed Sasha and Grizzop to the bar. Zolf sat quietly and watched as Cel held Azu’s hand the whole way, even when they were changing gear.

Thoughts of when he last saw Hamid were going round and around in Zolf’s mind. Hamid’s face had been bright red and damp with tears, but his eyes had been blazing. Zolf couldn’t even really remember what the argument had started about – they argued a lot, and the arguments always ended the same way. Hamid would ask Zolf to stop judging his choices, Zolf would call Hamid young and naïve, and Hamid would storm out.

Zolf hated that they couldn’t seem to get along anymore, but he couldn’t help but admit that Hamid looked gorgeous when he was burning with righteous rage.

Their final argument had been mainly about Bertie, Zolf remembered, as he watched the world go by out of the back of Azu’s Ford Topaz. Zolf had strong opinions about Bertie constantly sponging off Hamid’s good will, and Hamid had strong opinions about being able to judge people’s character for himself. On cue, Zolf had answered back with his usual repost – that Hamid was too young and naïve to judge the contents of people’s character. But that last time, Hamid had gone off-script. Instead of shouting back, eyes blazing, Hamid had instead stood quietly with eyes as cold as ice.

‘You’ll never see me as an adult, will you,’ Hamid had said softly. ‘You’ll never…’ He had tailed off.

Zolf had been momentarily thrown. He’d scrabbled around for something to say.

‘Not when you’re still friends with the likes of him!’ he’d spat.

Hamid had drawn himself up and stared coldly at Zolf.

‘I’m fully capable of choosing my own friends, thank you,’ he had said.

And he had walked out, and Zolf hadn’t seen him since. 

And now…

‘We’re here,’ Azu said, unclicking her seatbelt. Zolf was snapped abruptly from his reminiscing. He clambered back over the passenger seat and staggered out into the car park to where Grizzop and Sasha were waiting impatiently.

The bar was shut as it was the middle of the day, but Grizzop pounded his fist on the door until a long-suffering member of staff abandoned their mop and bucket to let them in. Zolf tailed behind them all, feeling out of place and uncomfortable. 

The manager wasn’t happy to see them all troop into his closed bar, and was even less happy when Grizzop demanded their CCTV logs from the past three days. 

He seemed willing enough to comply, however, after Grizzop insinuated that there was evidence of drink spiking and it might be blamed on the bar and its staff.

There were only two relevant camera angles, and one only showed Hamid staggering to and from the bathroom.

‘He looks like he’s off his face,’ Sasha commented.

‘I’m sure he only had two drinks,’ Azu said, frowning. ‘He doesn’t drink much, not anymore. I know he used to, when he was with Gideon and Liliana,’ she said, hurriedly, looking to Zolf, ‘but he doesn’t do that anymore.’

The second camera showed a grey patch of the smoking area and a section of the metal barriers separating it from the street.

‘There,’ Sasha said, pointing, as Grizzop forwarded to the time just after Hamid left the toilets. ‘There he is,’ she said, as the slim, staggering figure lurched its way over to the barrier.

‘He looks awful,’ Azu breathed, as the figure of past Hamid rested his head on the metal railing, looking like he might vomit. They watched as the barrier gave way under his dead weight and he fell heavily, catching himself on his hands and knees.

Zolf had seen Hamid drunk, but he had never seen Hamid so horribly inebriated. He hated it.

‘His drink must have been tampered with,’ Cel said, shaking their head. ‘He wasn’t nearly that bad before he went to the toilet.’

Then Azu gasped as they watched another figure come into frame and lift Hamid to his feet. Though they could only see his back, the newcomer was wearing a distinctive enough looking jacket – a leather jacket with patches sewn on to the back – that it didn’t take long to pick him out of earlier CCTV footage from the bar.

‘Him,’ Sasha said, stabbing her finger down. Grizzop snapped a photo of the screen, getting a clearer shot of the guy’s face. It was still a bit grainy, both from the dark inside of the bar and the quality of the camera, but Sasha and Grizzop seemed happy enough.

‘I’ll go ask around the staff who are already here,’ Grizzop said, hopping down off the chair. ‘See if any of them recognise him.’

Zolf stared at the face on the man who had most likely hurt Hamid. The ringing was back in his ears.

‘What now?’ Azu was asking Sasha, behind him. There was a rustle of leather – probably Sasha shrugging.

‘We run the pic through our software, see if we can find this guy,’ she said. ‘And then we find Hamid.’

Zolf was frozen.

‘Hey, Zolf,’ Sasha said, gently, patting his arm. ‘You okay?’

Zolf took a breath.

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But having a breakdown isn’t going to help, is it.’

Sasha gave him a sad smile.

‘Azu, Cel, why don’t you guys go home, maybe give Zolf a lift?’ Sasha said. ‘It’ll just be PI stuff now, pretty much, and Grizzop and I’ll let you know as soon as we find anything.’

‘Yes. Good plan!’ said Cel, their voice full of false brightness. ‘C’mon, guys. Let’s leave the professionals to do their jobs.’

Zolf followed them out and said very little the entire journey to his house. Once there, Azu got out of the passenger seat and folded the seat forward to let Zolf out. It took him a little while to wrangle his prosthetic free of the car. As soon as he was free, Azu pulled him into a tight hug. He grunted in shock – he and Azu had always been wary of each other, subtly competing for Hamid’s friendship and attention. It all felt silly and juvenile, now.

‘We’ll find him,’ she said, her chin resting on his head and her voice resonating through his skull.

Zolf could feel the faith in her voice.

‘Yeah,’ he said, voice cracking, wishing he still had faith.

His house was quiet and empty when he let himself in. The bath was fixed, and apart from the nest-like pile of clothes under his bed and the tattered shower curtain, there was no sign the little dragon had been there at all.

Zolf stomped moodily into his bedroom and sank down onto his bed, head in his hands. 

He didn’t sleep. Halfway through the night he gave up trying, and instead dug through some old boxes to unearth his old driftwood dolphin. He held it close to his chest and prayed to Poseidon for the first time in over a year.

‘Please,’ he muttered, feeling slightly self-conscious. ‘Please.’

Hamid had been there throughout Zolf’s crisis of faith and had dealt with him in the fallout. Hamid had been the one to force Zolf out of the house and his self-isolation and had introduced him to Cel and Azu. Zolf had been overwhelmed by these new friends. Hamid had been doing well and living his best life, and Zolf felt like he was dragging him down. 

Zolf had driven away Hamid. He had driven away the pseudodragon who had, for whatever reason, sought safety in Zolf’s house.

Zolf knelt on the floor, alone in his house, and held tightly to the token of a god he no longer believed in.

Morning light was peeking through his curtains before he realised how much time had passed. Zolf got stiffly to his feet. His head throbbed from lack of sleep and his leg ached painfully above the prosthetic he’d stupidly left on all night. He phoned in sick to work, avoided Wilde’s calls, and sat on his sofa in his dressing gown feeling like hammered crap.

Halfway through his self-pity session a loud scrabble and crash from upstairs made Zolf jump. He sat still, not daring to hope, and listened to the quiet thumping and scratching coming from the ceiling. Then, after a series of pattering steps down the stairs, a small bronze muzzle poked its way into the living room.

Zolf sat still and silent as the pseudodragon pushed through the door and trotted over to the sofa, where it lay its heavy head on his good knee. It sighed, little puffs of smoke billowing from its nostrils.

‘You came back,’ Zolf said, in barely a whisper – nervous that he would scare it off again. The dragon started up a low purr that only grew louder as Zolf reached forward to scratch its ears.

‘I’m sorry,’ Zolf said, as the purr grew and the dragon’s eyes half-closed in pleasure. It shuffled forwards, standing on Zolf’s toes in an attempt to get closer. ‘I didn’t mean it. I just…’

His feelings overwhelmed him, and he leant down to rest his forehead on the scaly head of the little dragon. It was warm and the scales were surprisingly smooth. The dragon trilled, and when Zolf sat up it tried to lick at the tears on his cheeks. 

‘I’m sorry I shouted,’ Zolf said. ‘I’m worried about my friend – he’s gone missing, and he might be hurt, and the last time I saw him I was so awful to him.’

The dragon trilled. 

‘I wonder just how intelligent you are,’ Zolf said, stroking its neck. ‘You are a very magical creature. I can’t imagine wizards having idiot familiars.’

The pseudodragon trilled again, jumped up onto the sofa beside Zolf, and curled up close. Zolf spread his blanket across the dragon, too, though it hardly needed the warmth. Finally, lulled by the soporific effect of the purring and the warm, comforting weight by his side, Zolf sank into sleep.

*

_Hamid had come round after Zolf’s shift, though they were both too exhausted from exams and work respectively that they didn’t do much except eat takeaway and browse Netflix. Hamid had curled his legs up on the sofa and his feet were pressed into Zolf’s thigh, two hot little points of contact that Zolf was exquisitely aware of._

_‘I’ve missed you,’ Hamid said, out of nowhere, as Zolf fought with the remote to get it to connect to the TV._

_‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘I haven’t gone anywhere.’_

_‘I haven’t seen you properly in ages,’ Hamid pointed out. ‘I’ve been busy with exams, and your shifts have been all over the place recently.’_

_‘Winter’s always bad,’ Zolf said, giving up on the remote and turning to Hamid._

_‘Well… I missed you,’ Hamid said, leaning closer and resting his head on Zolf’s shoulder._

_Zolf patted him awkwardly on the head._

_‘I’ll always be here, whenever you’re free,’ he said. ‘If I’m not at work,’ he amended._

_‘Yeah,’ Hamid sighed, leaning heavily against his arm. ‘I know.’_

*

Zolf woke up in the late afternoon, disoriented, but the pseudodragon was still warm beside him, letting out little puffs of smoke with each snore. He wasn’t sure if he was hungry or not, so he had a big drink of water and peered into his fridge for inspiration. The pseudodragon followed him into the kitchen and so Zolf gave him a bit of chicken for his troubles. It ate it delicately again, licking its chops after finishing and trilling happily.

Zolf settled for a bowl of Weetabix with a heavy helping of sugar and took it back into the lounge to eat in front of the TV. The little dragon followed him again, settling down happily on the sofa in its previous position. There he stayed, mindlessly watching bland tv shows, until the sky grew dark outside.

Sasha phoned him in the evening to tell him that there was no news, and so Zolf went to bed anxious and unsettled. The little dragon, apparently having forgiven him for shouting at the hospital, seemed to sense his despondent mood and curled up on the bed bedside him, a little purring furnace.

‘I hope Hamid’s okay,’ Zolf said, quietly, as he ran a hand down the dragon’s flank. ‘I hope they find him soon.’

He fell asleep eventually and woke early the next day with the little dragon still cuddling close, trilling softly in its dreams.

Zolf left the pseudodragon at home rather than take him to the hospital again, and so he left the bathroom window fully open so it could leave the house if it wished. After his shift he went straight to Rackett and Amsterdam, PI, to see if he could be of any help. He arrived outside the building to hear the sound of loud, self-important shouting emanating from the upstairs window, and he realised with a sinking heart that Bertie must have arrived back from his ‘grand tour’.

Cel let him in the building when he buzzed – they answered the front door themselves rather than buzz it open from upstairs, and their face looked a little shell-shocked. Cel had never met Bertie before, being a relatively new initiate into their friendship group. Zolf wondered if they’d offered to answer the door just to get a break.

‘Bertie’s back, then,’ Zolf said.

‘Uh, yeah,’ they said, eyes wide. ‘Is he always… like this?’ 

A volley of shouting echoed down the dingy staircase, and Zolf sighed heavily.

‘Yup,’ he said. ‘He can be… a bit much.’

Cel nodded, eyes wide.

The steep, rickety stairs were hard on his prosthetic as usual, and he was reminded why Sasha usually came to visit him rather than the other way around. Cel very kindly slowed down their usual frantic long-legged pace to wait for him. 

The shouting just grew louder as they got closer. Bertie’s particular brand of shouting always seemed to overwhelm all other sound. Zolf had always privately assumed it stemmed from his innate sense of privilege. He’d shared that thought with Hamid, once, though Hamid hadn’t found it as funny as Zolf did.

‘Ah, Mr Smith!’ Bertie boomed, as Zolf hobbled into the offices of Rackett and Amsterdam, PI. ‘I suppose you know of Hamid’s disappearance, too?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Zolf said. ‘Good to see you, Bertie. Back early from the continent, then?’

Bertie harrumphed.

‘Wilde phoned to tell me about Hamid,’ Bertie said. ‘I’m glad someone thought to inform me about my oldest friend, mm? About his possible kidnapping or murder, hmm?’

‘Look, Bertie, if we knew anything you could help with then we would have called you!’ Sasha shouted, unusually worked up. ‘But we haven’t, so you can’t.’

‘Yeah,’ Grizzop said, perched on his desk and swinging his legs with frenetic tension. ‘What good are you going to do, anyway?’

‘You said he went missing from a bar, hmm? Well then, I will go to that bar and royally thump the staff until they tell me what they know!’

Sasha sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

‘Bertie, they don’t know anything useful. And besides, ‘amid wouldn’t want you to ‘urt people.’

‘Well what are we all standing around for!’ Bertie blustered. ‘Shouldn’t we be out there, combing the streets? Handing out his picture?’

Bertie’s dog, Brutor, barked along in agreement, quivering at Bertie’s heels. Zolf was pleased to see that, for once, he was out of that godsdamned papoose. 

‘We’re doing all we can,’ Azu began, in her calming mediator voice.

‘Hamid’s still missing, so it’s clearly not good enough!’ Bertie shouted, accompanied by a volley of barks from Brutor.

Zolf was reminded, abruptly, that Bertie did have one saving grace: his love for Hamid. Bertie was selfish, self-obsessed, and a generally all-over awful person, but he did quite obviously care for his oldest – and possibly his only – friend. Wilde must have thought so too, or he wouldn’t have phoned Bertie to tell him the news.

‘Us arguing ain’t gonna help ‘amid,’ Zolf said, raising his voice. ‘So how about we all just calm down and think about what we’re gonna do next?’

‘Ah, Mr Smith, good to know someone still has some sense!’ Bertie sat down, heavily, in one of the office chairs. It creaked worryingly under his bulk.

Somehow having Bertie agree with him made Zolf feel worse.

‘Right, then,’ Zolf said, turning to Sasha and Grizzop. ‘As the resident experts here – what should we do next?’

*

The little dragon waited at the front door for a little while, hoping that Zolf would come back. He tried a little experimental whine, but that didn’t seem to work, so he tried scratching the door. His claws made a rather large mark. He stopped, remembering how upset Zolf had been at the scratches in the bath.

The dragon whined again, turned a few circles, then settled on the doormat. He lay his head on his front claws and heaved a great sigh. Abandoned again. 

After a few minutes, he got bored of waiting, so he poked around the little house for a while, appropriating more clothes for his nest – a few clean ones from the dryer, a few from the laundry hamper, pleasantly saturated in Zolf’s scent. The nest then needed restructuring, which occupied the dragon for a little while longer, but then he was bored again. The bathroom window was open, so he wriggled his way out and coasted gently down to the ragged square patch of garden on opened wings. He knew the way to Zolf – he’d gone with him the day before. He wanted to see Zolf.

The dragon flapped its wings ponderously, slowly gaining altitude, and then with a screech of delight he flew higher and headed towards the hospital.

He got distracted when he was in the hospital – there was a strong scent that burnt his nose and made it hard to track Zolf, and then he got lost in a place with lots of children and got mobbed. Not wanting to hurt any of the young ones, it put up with the prodding and poking until an adult came to release it.

The adult then proceeded to shoo the dragon out of the building, which the dragon was unhappy about, but he knew that if he hurt anyone that Zolf would be sad. He flew away and coasted on some warm air currents, wheeling blissfully through the sky.

He stayed up there, revelling in the joy of flight, until a familiar scent caught his nose – comfort-home-dwarf-safe. He descended slowly, scanning the streets below until he saw a familiar broad-shouldered form. Trilling in happiness, he overegged the landing in his eagerness to see Zolf and tumbled a bit on the pavement.

‘What is that!’ squealed one of the tall people standing around Zolf. The dragon ignored them all and beelined straight for Zolf, purring as he nuzzled Zolf’s leg. Zolf’s hand came down to scratch the dragon’s ears and the dragon closed his eyes in bliss.

‘I found him in my house,’ Zolf was saying above him. ‘He was hurt and scared, so I healed him, and now he likes me.’

The dragon could just about understand what people said – the odd word or two slipped through, but he could gather the gist of most conversations. He trilled in response and purred louder.

‘He’s lovely.’ A large orc in bright pink moved a bit closer. ‘Can I stroke him?’

‘It’s not up to me,’ Zolf said.

The orc approached slowly – the dragon sniffed cautiously at her outstretched hand. She smelt sweet and gentle and nice, and the dragon moved forward to nuzzle her hand. She gasped in delight.

‘He likes me!’ she said, excitedly.

‘Hey, little buddy!’ said a tall figure next to the pink one. The dragon eyed up the orc’s strong shoulders before flapping his wings and making a standing jump to reach them. The Orc squeaked and flinched, but the dragon held on and settled down on her shoulders before reaching over to sniff the tall one. They smelt sharp and tangy, and made the dragon’s nose itch. He sneezed, and a little puff of flame shot out and set the tall one’s hair on fire.

There was a moment of chaos and panic as everyone scrambled to put it out and the dragon shrunk down into the orc’s neck in fear of retribution, but no one seemed angry. In fact, the tall one was laughing.

‘What a little firecracker!’ they said, reaching over to tickle under the dragon’s chin.

‘He likes it up there,’ Zolf commented, squinting up at the dragon. ‘He’s too big to sit on my shoulders.’

‘Azu is the perfect size,’ said another person, smaller than the others but larger than Zolf. She was frowning at the dragon as though not sure what to make of it all. The dragon didn’t like that – it wanted them all to be his friends – so he jumped carefully down off the orc and went to sniff the human.

She smelt curiously neutral, no real strong scent other than an overall hint of familiarity. The dragon nuzzled her gently. Slowly, hesitantly, she began to stroke his back, along the ridged scales along his spine. He wiggled happily.

‘What’s going on here!’ boomed a loud voice, as a huge human and a goblin hurried around the corner. ‘All this hanging about isn’t going to help Hamid!’

Hamid. That name rang a bell somewhere in the deep recesses of the dragon’s mind. He recognised it just he had recognised Zolf and his scent, but where Zolf was warm and comforting, the name inspired the opposite feeling.

‘And what’s this?’ the big man bent over the dragon, frowning down at it. ‘That’s a very large pseudodragon, young lady.’

A dog barked from where it was strapped to the big man’s chest. The dragon ignored it – it was only small, and therefore beneath his notice.

‘S’not mine. It’s Zolf’s,’ said the neutral-smelling woman.

‘Mr Smith? This dragon much too large for you! Where did you find such a magnificent animal, hmm? It deserves to be companion to a much more impressive sort of person, don’t you think?’

Before the pseudodragon could react, the big man picked him up with big beefy hands and draped him around his neck like a scarf. The dragon risked a sniff and choked a little – the smell of strong cologne was overpowering, though beneath that there was a smell the dragon didn’t mind – a old, familiar scent. 

‘There, you see? What a dashing figure I cut with this splendid creature on my shoulders.’

The big man reached up to tickle the dragon under the chin. The dragon couldn’t help but preen a little.

‘Sure, Bertie,’ said Zolf, tiredly. He sounded sad. He was looking up at the dragon with a strange expression on his face.

‘We’ve gotten distracted, here!’ shouted the goblin. ‘We’re supposed to be looking for Hamid!’

‘Combing the streets ain’t working, Grizzop,’ said no-smell girl. ‘We’re not gonna find him like this.’

‘Maybe you could ride this pseudodragon around, Mr Amsterdam, like a scaly horse!’ Bertie said. 

Zolf was now smelling strongly of sad. The dragon leapt off Bertie’s shoulders and went to rub against Zolf’s good leg, trilling gently.

‘He really likes you, Zolf,’ said the orc. 

‘Yeah, well,’ Zolf grunted. ‘I gave him all my fancy salmon for tea.’

*

The street-raking had done nothing but cause more arguments – Zolf was tired from a long shift at work, and hungry, and he just wanted to go home. Watching the pseudodragon pose regally on top of Bertie’s shoulders had only made Zolf feel worse. Bertie, though Zolf hated to admit it, was right. The pseudodragon was a magnificent creature, and it deserved a companion to match it in turn. It didn’t deserve a grotty nest under Zolf’s sagging mattress, constructed mostly of Zolf’s used socks and T-shirts.

It followed him home anyway, even when he ignored it. He ended up feeling guilty enough to open up another expensive fancy steak, which the pseudodragon ate delicately as always.

Zolf watched it eat distantly. He wasn’t hungry. His stomach churned with worry about Hamid. He didn’t want to have the last words he said to Hamid be cruel ones. He didn’t want to have said _last_ words at all. He wanted Hamid back so he could apologise. So he could hug him again. He wanted to tell Hamid that he wasn’t angry at him, not really. 

Zolf wasn’t sure how long he sat at his kitchen table, staring at the swirling grain in the wood, but he was snapped out of his fugue by the soft trilling of the pseudodragon as stared up at him.

‘You finished?’ Zolf asked. It licked its lips. ‘You better not still be hungry,’ Zolf warned, wagging a playful finger. ‘That steak cost more than my weekly shopping.’

The pseudodragon just stared up at him with limpid eyes. Zolf felt vaguely silly for talking to it, but it did seem very intelligent. And it was nice to have someone to talk to.

Zolf moved to the sitting room and turned on the TV after cleaning up the dragon’s steak plate, but he didn’t really pay attention. He stared blankly at the screen, occasionally glancing at his phone in case Sasha had sent him an update, absentmindedly scratching the dragon as it curled up beside him.

He went to bed still in that strange, blank state, and didn’t dream at all.

*

The next day passed fast and slow, all at once. Zolf felt like he was going through the motions while in some sort of trance – his body did its usual tasks, getting ready in the morning and going to work and then going home in the evening, but his mind was elsewhere, thinking of Hamid. Hamid had been missing for days, now. Days with no phone, and no clothes. Probably no food. Hamid loved his food, and his phone. And his clothes. Zolf thought of Hamid’s much-loved suit, lying in tatters on the alley floor, and had to swallow hard to stop the tears from welling up.

The pseudodragon was really the only thing that kept Zolf from having a complete breakdown. It was almost as though it could tell when Zolf was about to fall apart, as it would trill loudly and nuzzle his leg, or curl up beside him on the sofa, or stand on his bed with its claws on his chest to lick his face and beard. Zolf dreaded any call from Wilde, knowing that once the pseudodragon was taken back to his proper home, Zolf would have nothing left to cling to. Grizzop and Sasha had each other, their own little pack, and their work. Azu and Cel had each other. Even Bertie had Brutor.

Zolf had Wilde, he supposed, but Wilde was a busy man, and wasn’t exactly the kind of friend who came over to watch Netflix and eat pizza. And besides, Zolf didn’t want Wilde. He wanted Hamid.

When Zolf had to go back to work, he took the pseudodragon with him again. He couldn’t bear to leave it behind, terrified of coming back to an empty house. It followed him quite happily onto the bus and was very well behaved, just as it had been the last time he took it to the hospital.

‘Is that thing allowed in here?’ one of his ornerier patients asked as Zolf made his usual morning rounds.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said an older orc woman from a nearby bed, ‘can’t you see that’s a therapy animal?’

Zolf frowned slightly, even as the dragon stayed close to his good leg. It was a good a cover as any, and it meant he could keep the pseudodragon with him without upsetting too many people, he didn’t mind the assumption. Not to mention that it wasn’t too far from the truth.

Zolf wasn’t really paying too much attention to the other wards he was nominally in charge of until the pseudodragon wandered off to sniff at a pile of clothes on a patient’s chair. The patient’s bed was empty – no doubt off having tests done – and Zolf was just passing through the ward. When he reached the door, he realised the pseudodragon was still sniffing at the chair and growling slightly. 

‘Come on,’ Zolf called. ‘I’ve got work to do.’

The dragon uncharacteristically ignored him and continued to be transfixed by the chair. Its growling grew louder.

‘Oh, for the gods’ sakes,’ Zolf huffed, as he stumped back over to the dragon. ‘What’s got you all het up, then, hey?’

And then Zolf’s eyes fell on the chair. It wasn’t the chair itself that the dragon was so interested in, but the pile of clothes on top. Specifically the jacket, neatly folded at the top of the pile.

Zolf recognised that jacket.

In a second he was hurrying out of the ward as fast as his leg could carry him, and was already pulling his phone out of his pocket even though he could only turn it on once he was outside the hospital. He didn’t even stop to see if the pseudodragon was following him. Once he was outside the hospital, his phone seemed to take an age to turn on and his fingers were shaking as he scrolled to Sasha’s name.

She picked up on the second ring.

‘’lo, Zolf,’ she said.

‘I found the guy, the guy from the bar,’ Zolf said, hurriedly.

‘You… how?’ she asked quickly. From the rustling sounds coming through the line, Zolf guessed that she was already pulling on her coat.

‘He’s here, at the hospital. His jacket was on a chair, next to his bed,’ Zolf said. ‘I didn’t see the actual guy, but he’s definitely still here. All his clothes are still here.’

‘We’re on our way,’ Sasha said, sounding breathless. ‘Which ward?’

‘I’ll meet you outside and take you there,’ Zolf said. ‘He doesn’t know you’re coming, he won’t run.’

‘See you in five,’ she said, and abruptly ended the call.

Zolf lowered his phone. His hands were still shaking and his heart was beating rapidly. If Hamid’s supposed assailant was in the hospital, then where was Hamid? He tried not to think about it – tried not to think about anything at all until Sasha and Grizzop arrived, spilling out of their taxi in a fluid motion and racing over to where Zolf stood waiting.

‘Follow me,’ Zolf said shortly.

As they approached, they could hear a commotion from the ward, loud shouting from multiple voices all undercut by a low, ominous growl. 

Zolf realised he’d left the pseudodragon behind.

‘Oh, shit,’ Zolf breathed, as he barged through the double doors.

The patient had returned to his bed and was standing on it in his hospital gown, screaming at the nearby nurses and doctors to kill the beast. He was pointing a shaking finger at the pseudodragon, who was still near the chair, hackles raised, hissing and growling just as he had when Zolf had first discovered him under the bed. The man was scared of the pseudodragon and – Zolf realised suddenly – the pseudodragon was afraid of the man.

There were a couple of nurses hovering, unsure, between the patient and the dragon. A doctor was trying to coax the man down from his bed, warning him that he would rip his stitches.

The scene before him was made all the more odd by Wilde inexplicably being there.

‘Ah, Zolf,’ he said, an eyebrow raised. ‘I thought I’d find you near the pseudodragon.’

‘Zolf, could you deal with that?’ one of the nurses asked, looking harried, gesturing to the dragon. Zolf approached it slowly, wishing he had snacks to distract it with. Its teeth were bared and it was growling fiercely, and for the first time Zolf realised that, intelligent magical creature it may have been, it was still a dragon the size of an Alsatian. It looked more scared than angry, however – Zolf could see it trembling, belying its fierce exterior. 

‘It’s okay,’ Zolf said, gently, approaching slowly from the front. ‘I won’t let him hurt you.’

The dragon’s eyes snapped to Zolf and for a brief second Zolf panicked at the sight of the rage burning in those animalistic orange eyes – there was barely a trace of intelligence left. It just a scared animal with sharp claws and fire breath, backed into a corner. It could turn on them all. Zolf held his own breath and tried to look as non-threatening as possible.

‘You know me,’ he said, gently. ‘You’ve licked up enough of my tears to know that I wouldn’t hurt you, not ever.’ Zolf help out his hand, just as he had done when first he found the pseudodragon under his bed.

To Zolf’s relief, the dragon abruptly stopped growling and instead whined pitifully, before running over and trying to hide behind Zolf’s legs. Zolf stroked it gently, smoothing its hackles down.

‘This the guy?’ Sasha asked, nodding up at the man who was still screeching from atop his hospital bed.

‘There’s the jacket,’ Zolf said, indicating the chair. Grizzop was already inspecting it with gloved hands and lifting it into a plastic sleeve.

‘Hey, that’s mine!’ the man shouted.

‘It’s evidence,’ Sasha shrugged. ‘You’ll get it back, if you’ve got nothing to hide.’ She moved to stand next to Zolf, providing another shield for the dragon to hide behind.

‘Evidence for what?’ The man was bright red now, and furious. 

‘You’re a prime suspect in our missing persons case,’ Grizzop said, with a sharp smile. ‘Soon to be solved, I hope.’

‘Where’s Hamid?’ Zolf growled. ‘What did you do to him?’

The cowering form of the dragon behind him, warm and trembling beneath his hand, was the only thing stopping Zolf from grabbing the man and shaking the information out of him.

‘I was attacked!’ the man screeched, still pointing at the pseudodragon. ‘That _thing_ attacked me! I had third degree burns! I needed stitches!’

From behind everyone, Wilde began to laugh. It wasn’t a nice laugh. It was a sour laugh, like gone-off milk, thick and unpleasant.

‘Wilde, now is _not_ the time,’ Zolf snapped.

‘Haven’t you worked it out yet, Zolf?’ Wilde said. 

‘Worked what out?’ 

‘That’s not a pseudodragon,’ Wilde said. He was still laughing with that strange bitter mirth, but his eyes were sad.

Zolf stared down at the cowering lump of brass scales still taking refuge behind him. Sasha knelt down beside the dragon, frowning.

‘Zolf,’ she said, quietly. ‘Look at his front leg.’

Zolf knelt down too, though his descent was much slower and creakier than Sasha’s. The dragon instantly crowded towards him, trilling softly as it pressed its muzzle against his chest. Zolf ran a gentle hand down the dragon’s left foreleg and felt a thick line of scar tissue. It was a scar Zolf was intimately familiar with – he had seen that scar form after healing the wound there, had watched the skin knit back together, had watched Hamid’s eyes flutter open as the bleeding stopped. It was Hamid’s scar – the same shape and size, on the pseudodragon’s leg. On the pseudo-pseudodragon’s leg.

‘Hamid?’ Zolf breathed. It was an almost impossible thought. ‘Hamid, is that you?’

The pseudodragon stared at him with bright orange eyes, and Zolf searched desperately for any trace of understanding. Was Hamid aware of who he was? Had he lost himself to the dragon form he now occupied?

Everyone was staring at him now – the other nurses and the doctor in the room looked as though they thought he was mad, and Wilde still had that awful grin on his face. Grizzop had abandoned the jacket and was staring at the dragon rather than Zolf.

Sasha put a comforting hand on Zolf’s shoulder.

‘Hamid? Are you in there?’ she asked, leaning closer.

The dragon’s head swung ponderously between the two of them.

‘Hamid, please,’ Zolf said. ‘ _Please_.’

*

There was that name again, the one that brought back horrible feelings – being scared and hurt and helpless. The dragon didn’t want to be helpless. He wanted to be safe, and warm, and happy.

It was all too much – first, the foul smell of the danger and then the danger itself appearing to shout at him, and then his name – _that_ name being brought up and repeated again and again. The dragon wanted to escape. He _needed_ to escape.

So he ran, ignoring the shouts behind him, his claws skittering on the smooth floor beneath him. He even ignored Zolf’s cries, though it hurt him deeply. Once out into the open air it took only a few flaps for the dragon to become airborne, and he flew to the one place where he knew he would be safe.

*

Grizzop and Sasha both came back into the ward, panting with exertion and looking defeated. Zolf had wanted to chase after Hamid himself, but he knew that compared to Sasha and Grizzop’s speed he stood no chance – and besides, he hadn’t wanted to give Hamid’s assailant the chance to slip away. He’d glared at the man the entire time the others were gone.

‘He flew away, as soon as he was outside,’ Grizzop said. 

‘He could be anywhere,’ Sasha said. ‘Hey, so what are we gonna do with him?’ she asked, jabbing a thumb at the patient still standing on his bed.

‘I can deal with things from here,’ Wilde said, stepping forward. ‘Once he’s released from the hospital, we’ll take care of things on this end.’ He had his hand up, the meritocrat ring flashing in the fluorescent hospital lights. 

‘Thanks, Wilde,’ Sasha said. The man – still standing on his bed like a Victorian matron scared of a mouse – whimpered quietly. 

Zolf didn’t want to be in the same room as that man anymore – the only thing he cared about was Hamid and where he had gone. Wilde was very capable of dealing with the legal side of things – he’d been working with Sasha and Grizzop as their contact in the meritocratic forces since they’d begun their PI business, and Zolf was not exactly au fait with that kind of work. All of Zolf’s higher thought was taken up with thoughts of Hamid, lost and alone, so he left the others in the ward without a word and went to ask for the rest of the day off. Sasha caught up with him just as he was leaving the locker room, already out of his scrubs and back in his own clothes.

‘Wilde’s sorted it,’ she said, quietly, as she followed Zolf out of the hospital.

‘Good,’ Zolf said, ‘but that doesn’t help us much with Hamid.’

‘It might help if Hamid knows that he’s safe, now,’ Sasha pointed out.

‘Yeah, but we don’t even know where Hamid _is_.’

‘I’ve called Azu and Cel, got them up to speed,’ Sasha said. ‘Grizzop and Wilde are dealing with the guy who attacked ‘amid, but it shouldn’t take long. What with the cctv and all.’

Zolf frowned as he hurried out of the hospital main entrance.

‘If you were a scared dragon, where would you go?’ he asked, as Sasha waved down a taxi.

‘Home?’ Sasha suggested. Zolf shook his head, slowly.

‘He didn’t go to his flat after he was a dragon,’ he pointed out. ‘Not once, or you’d’ve found traces of ‘im being there when you searched it.’

Sasha nodded.

‘Well, where has he been livin’ all this time?’ she asked. There was something knowing in her eyes.

‘Under my bed,’ Zolf admitted. ‘Do you… do you think he went back…’

Sasha shrugged.

‘It’s worth a look,’ she said, leaning into the taxi driver’s window to give him Zolf’s address before bundling Zolf into the back of the taxi.

‘I’ll see you there,’ she lied, shutting the door on Zolf’s protests, and the taxi whisked him away.

Zolf had to admit that the taxi was a lot faster than the bus, even though it did cost four times the price. At his front door he paused with his key out, suddenly terrified – what if Hamid hadn’t come back to his underbed nest? What if he’d flown off properly?

It took a few deep breaths before Zolf could muster the courage to turn his key in the lock and push open his front door. The house was quiet and dark inside, though there were a few scratches on the inside of the door he hadn’t noticed before.

There was nothing in the lounge or the kitchen, though Zolf hadn’t expected there to be. He knew he was putting off looking upstairs in case there was nothing to find. His hand, slick with sweat, slipped on the banisters of his stairs as he climbed to the first floor, trying to be as quiet as possible with his prosthetic.

The first thing he saw as he reached the landing was that his bedroom door was ajar. Zolf couldn’t remember whether he shut it or not that morning, but his anxious brain told him it was a good sign. He shuffled slowly into the bedroom and laboriously clambered down onto his knees to peer under the bed.

‘Hamid?’ he breathed.

Two burning orange eyes peered out from the darkness beneath, and Zolf’s heart pounded hard with relief.

‘Oh, thank the gods,’ he sighed, sitting back awkwardly on his heels. The eyes blinked at him. Just like the first time he found the dragon, Zolf leant forward slowly with a hand outstretched, palm up. He thought about going to get some food to tempt the dragon out, but that felt somewhat odd now he knew the dragon was Hamid rather than just a scared animal. But then, he didn’t know how much of Hamid was still in the little dragon – surely Hamid was not fully aware, or he would have tried to tell them all it was him, that he was safe. He wouldn’t have purposefully left them to worry. Hamid wasn’t like that.

‘You know I don’t have the best bedside manner,’ Zolf said, deciding to talk as though the dragon was Hamid rather than muddle himself further. ‘Ironic, really, consid’ring my job and all. And the last time I tried to get you through shock –‘ Zolf paused, thinking of their fated climbing adventure. ‘Well, I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory.’

The dragon blinked at him from beneath the bed but didn’t move.

‘I guess you feel safe under there,’ Zolf said. He shifted on his knees and his prosthetic creaked, so he spent half a minute or so settling down on his carpet and getting comfortable. ‘I’m glad,’ Zolf continued, as though he hadn’t stopped talking, ‘I’m glad you knew you could come here. That you’d be safe. Though why you want all my smelly clothes is beyond me – is it an instinct thing? Do dragons have instincts?’ He huffed a small laugh. ‘I guess that’s why you were such a priss eatin’ your steaks and fish. Too polite even when you’re literally a dragon.’ 

A faint noise emanated from beneath the bed – not quite a trill, but not a growl or a hiss, either.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Zolf said, ‘I know how important you think being _polite_ is.’ 

A little huff preceded a small puff of smoke from beneath the bed. Zolf rolled his eyes.

‘But, seriously though,’ he said. ‘You’re safe, now. Wilde and Sasha and Grizzop – they’re dealing with the guy who – well, I don’t know what he did, but I’m glad you got a few hits in yourself.’

Another puff of smoke.

‘What I mean to say is – you’re safe. You don’t have to be… this… anymore. I’m sure it’s easier than bein’ a person – god knows I’d like a break from higher thought processes now and then – but you can’t hide forever, Hamid. You’ve got to come out and deal with it all at some point.’

Zolf rubbed a hand over his face.

‘Look, Azu’d be much better than me at talking about this kind of stuff. She’ll help you – we all will.’

Zolf took a breath.

‘We love you, Hamid. We miss you. I… when I thought I might never see you again, might never get to apologise…’ Zolf had to sniff hard to hold in the threatening tears. It didn’t really work – a few renegades made good their escape and slid down into his beard.

A faint trill came from under the bed, and two claws appeared from the darkness. They were followed shortly after by a brass muzzle, and Zolf sat very still as the pseudodragon – the dragon – _Hamid_ – crawled slowly out from beneath Zolf’s bed. Zolf barely breathed as Hamid curled up in his lap and began to purr.

‘How do we get you back, Hamid?’ Zolf asked. ‘Can we get you back?’

The dragon said nothing, continuing to purr.

To stop more tears from falling, Zolf buried his face in the dragon’s back, wondering how his goal of comforting Hamid had gotten so turned around. But even as he held the dragon close, the brassy scales shifted beneath his hands, turning soft and smooth. The sharp-tipped claws pressed into his thighs changed to blunt, delicate fingers, and the body in his arms shifted to a slimmer, more humanoid shape.

‘Hamid?’ Zolf asked, hardly daring to believe that he held Hamid, real Hamid, in his arms. ‘Are you…’

‘Zolf,’ said Hamid’s voice, cracked and rough with disuse. ‘It was _my_ fault, Zolf. I… I drank too much, and… and…’ His voice hitched painfully.

‘No, no, no,’ Zolf said, leaning back and taking hold of Hamid’s face with both hands, staring into his large, glistening eyes and wiping away the falling tears with his thumbs. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Hamid. Your drink was spiked – and even if it hadn’t been,’ Zolf said firmly, gently shaking Hamid’s head, ‘it still wouldn’t have been your fault. You understand me?’

Hamid nodded, though it was difficult with Zolf’s larger hands still bracketing his face. Zolf stared hungrily at the face he hadn’t seen for so long, drinking in the aristocratic cheekbones, the large, soulful eyes, the soft, shiny hair. 

‘Gods, I missed you,’ Zolf said, tugging Hamid into a proper hug.

‘I missed you too, Zolf,’ Hamid said wetly into his shoulder. ‘Let’s not fight again.’

‘I think fightin’ is eighty percent of our friendship,’ Zolf joked, even as he squeezed tighter. 

‘I wish it wasn’t,’ Hamid said sadly.

‘We’ll have to work on it, then.’

‘That… sounds nice.’

Zolf reluctantly broke the hug, and two facts suddenly became very pertinent.

‘You have a sock on your head,’ Zolf said, reaching to take it off, just as Hamid said, ‘um… I’m _naked_?’

They scrambled apart hastily, and Zolf busied himself in searching for spare clean clothes while very pointedly not looking at Hamid. He all but threw a bundle of clothes over his shoulder before going downstairs to wait for Hamid to dress. Zolf put the kettle on for something to do and sent off a quick text to Sasha, explaining that all was well, and he’d update her later. He received a barrage of texts afterwards, but Zolf silenced his phone and put it face down on the counter. He wanted Hamid to have a bit of breathing space before the rest of their friends descended on him – he deserved to get used to being human again for a little while.

Hamid soon appeared, dressed in a too-large soft t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms with the drawstring tied as tight as it would go. Zolf’s chest clenched painfully.

‘Ooh, tea?’ he asked, as he padded softly into the kitchen. Zolf did not look down at Hamid’s bare feet.

‘Yeah,’ Zolf managed. ‘Do you, uh, want anything to eat?’

‘Some toast, maybe? And honey, if you have it?’ Hamid asked, somewhat shyly. ‘I, uh… appreciated the… the steaks, and everything, but-‘

‘I imagine you’re pretty sick of meat and fish,’ Zolf finished, grinning. ‘That’s hardly a surprise.’

‘I am very grateful for the food,’ Hamid said, perching on a chair at the small dinner table and fiddling absently with a coaster, ‘but…. I don’t think I can even look at a steak for a while.’

‘Fair enough.’ Zolf rummaged around loudly in his freezer. ‘I only have frozen bread, and you’ll have to make do with marmalade… I might have some jam still in the fridge that isn’t furry-‘

‘Marmalade’s great, Zolf. Thanks.’

Zolf busied himself with the tea and toast, ignoring the blush heating his cheeks. Hamid was fiddling with the salt and pepper shaker on the table behind him, picking them up and putting them down again, rolling them around in his hands, clearly revelling in having his fingers and opposable thumbs back. Hamid wolfed the toast down with barely a pause for breath when it was done – Zolf watched, amused.

‘You know, I think the dragon had more manners.’

Hamid looked up at him with bulging cheeks.

‘Rude,’ he said, after swallowing. 

The toast didn’t last long – Zolf sat at the kitchen table with their tea in silence as Hamid hoovered up the last of the crumbs.

‘I, uh, put your clothes in the laundry basket,’ Hamid said, after a large gulp of tea. ‘The ones from, um, under the bed.’

‘You didn’t need to do that,’ Zolf said, embarrassed to think of Hamid sorting through his dirty laundry.

‘I did,’ Hamid said. ‘There was quite a lot down there.’

‘Yes, well, dragon-you liked to be comfortable.’

‘They smelt like you,’ Hamid said vaguely, before immediately colouring in embarrassment. ‘I mean, they smelt familiar. Safe. Um.’ He took a big gulp of his tea.

Zolf didn’t know what to say. The weight of their argument was still hanging over him, and also the reason why Hamid had accidentally turned himself into a small dragon in the first place. But neither felt right to talk about, here at Zolf’s kitchen table, with Hamid wearing Zolf’s clothes.

‘I’m glad that you felt you could come here. That you felt safe here,’ Zolf said, finally. 

Hamid smiled behind his mug.

‘It was strange, being a dragon. Simple,’ he said. ‘Your world focusses down into instincts. I knew even as a dragon that I would be safe here. Though the clothes nest thing was a little weird.’ Hamid wrinkled his nose.

‘It will be nice having all my clothes back,’ Zolf laughed.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, finishing their tea. Zolf turned his phone over gingerly to see a huge number of notifications and winced.

‘The others really want to see you,’ he told Hamid, showing him the screen. Hamid looked a little overwhelmed.

‘I want to see them too,’ he admitted, ‘but… getting used to walking upright is difficult enough to deal with.’

‘How about we go for one at a time?’ Zolf asked. ‘Maybe bring someone else over, get you acclimatised slowly?’

Hamid nodded, worrying his lower lip with his teeth.

‘Maybe… Azu, first?’ he said. ‘Not that I don’t want to see the others, but-‘

‘Azu it is,’ Zolf said. He rattled off a text to Sasha, explaining the situation – he wasn’t close enough to Azu himself to text her directly. He and Azu had never really bonded except over the trashy romance novels that Hamid hated. Zolf always had the impression that he and Azu filled very similar positions in Hamid’s life, and it couldn’t help but feel something like a competition between the two of them.

 _Hamid came to yours, when he was a dragon_ , said a smug voice in Zolf’s head. _Not Azu’s._ He could afford to be magnanimous. 

When Zolf looked up, Hamid was staring at the phone in Zolf’s hands.

‘I guess I must have lost mine with my clothes,’ he said.

‘They found it – Grizzop and Sasha did, I mean,’ Zolf said. ‘It was a bit smashed, but screens can be replaced.’

‘And my clothes?’

‘Too ripped up, I think.’ Zolf sighed. ‘You should really ask them – I wasn’t involved in any of that. I didn’t even know you were missing until a day later.’

‘Why would you,’ Hamid shrugged, looking away from Zolf’s phone and down into his now-empty mug. ‘It’s not like we were really on speaking terms.’

It was a fair comment, but it stung all the same.

‘I do want to change that,’ Zolf said. ‘I didn’t like not seeing you, Hamid.’

‘I know.’ He looked up at Zolf with a trace of his old cheeky grin. ‘You told dragon-me, remember?’

‘You remember much of the… dragon stuff?’ Zolf asked. He thought back to all the things he’d said to what he thought was just an intelligent animal, and he felt himself grow hot with embarrassment.

‘Parts,’ Hamid admitted. ‘It’s all a bit blurry. I wasn’t all there, not really. Just kind of buried beneath the dragon part. It was nice. Peaceful.’

They lapsed into silence, Zolf desperately trying to remember if he’d said anything particularly incriminating.

‘You were sad,’ Hamid said, softly. ‘You’re not sleeping well. I was here for a week, and no one came over to see you.’

Zolf really didn’t want to hear Hamid talk about how alone he was – he knew it already. He said nothing and was saved by the doorbell.

‘Gods, were they waiting round the corner?’ he muttered as he heaved himself up from the table. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said to Hamid, unnecessarily, as he left the room.

Azu was at the door, wringing her hands and shifting from foot to foot.

‘Cel and Sasha are in the car,’ she explained. ‘Can I…’

‘He’s in the kitchen,’ Zolf said, and Azu was past him in a flash.

Zolf followed her more sedately and peered into the kitchen – Azu had engulfed Hamid in a hug, tears already flowing down her cheeks. They were talking softly to each other. Zolf turned away and sat in the lounge by himself, flicking aimlessly through channels, missing the warmth of the pseudodragon – of Hamid – curled up beside him. The gentle sounds of murmuring voices from the kitchen only served to make him feel more alone.

It was almost an hour later when a gentle knock on the lounge door broke Zolf out of his funk.

‘Hi, Zolf?’ 

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m, um, going to Azu and Cel’s for a little while.’

‘Okay,’ Zolf said. He’d been expecting it, but it still made his heart lurch.

‘Would you like to come with us?’ asked Azu, in her deep, measured tones. She was standing behind Hamid with one hand resting on his shoulder, as though scared that if she let him go he would vanish again.

‘Oh, no, it’s okay,’ Zolf said. ‘I’ve actually got, uh, work, later.’

‘I thought you were on shift this morning?’ Hamid frowned.

‘Yeah, but they need me in later,’ Zolf lied. ‘I missed the whole afternoon.’

‘Alright,’ Azu said peaceably. She turned to leave, but Hamid hovered in the doorway.

‘Don’t be a stranger, Zolf,’ he said, quietly.

‘It’s okay, Hamid. Go. I’ll see you soon,’ Zolf said, wondering if it rang as false to Hamid as it did in his own ears. 

Hamid smiled at him tentatively before turning to follow Azu. Zolf’s front door closed with a decisive snap, and Zolf sank low into his sofa.

The next week passed in a haze of tedium and routine. Zolf woke up and went to work, came home, and went to bed. There were various meals mixed in, though often he only had lunch if Wilde came to the hospital and dragged him into the canteen, but otherwise his life went back to how it had been before – quiet, normal, and both Hamid- and dragon-less. He had a feeling that the lunches were Wilde’s way of paying him back for when Zolf had got him through a particularly bad break-up – one for which Wilde still bore the scars.

Zolf missed the uncomplicated nature of the pseudodragon – the way it had curled up beside him, its heat and comfort and simple affection. But deep down he knew that really, he missed Hamid. He’d been missing Hamid for so long now that he was used to it, used to living with that physical ache in his chest. 

He thought about calling, but every time he picked up his phone Zolf would pause. Hamid was probably busy with Azu, or Azu and Cel, or Sasha and Grizzop, or even Bertie. Hamid probably wouldn’t want to come back to Zolf’s house for a while, in case it brought back bad memories of being a dragon. Or even of the incident that caused him to turn into a dragon in the first place.

Wilde had brought him up to speed with the case against Hamid’s assailant on one of his mandatory lunches. 

‘It wasn’t hard to get the confession. The truth spells felt like overkill, to be honest,’ Wilde said.

Zolf stabbed moodily at his salad.

‘He deserves worse,’ he muttered.

‘Perhaps – but we must abide by meritocratic law. And luckily for Hamid, being drugged didn’t prevent him from protecting himself.’

‘Yeah, but it was traumatic enough that he was stuck as a dragon for a week,’ Zolf pointed out.

Wilde shrugged delicately, picking at his sandwich. 

‘It could have been worse,’ he said. ‘And he had you looking after him. How _is_ Hamid doing, by the way?’

Zolf frowned.

‘You know I haven’t seen him since he turned back,’ he said. 

‘I do,’ Wilde said, ‘but I thought you might have at least talked to him.’

‘Well, I haven’t.’ Zolf stabbed harder at his plate, and the tines of the plastic fork squeaked sharply against the surface.

‘You should. He came to you, Zolf, when he needed somewhere to be safe. Not Azu, not Sasha – _you_.’

Zolf stared at his food to avoid Wilde’s eyes.

‘Hmm,’ was all he said.

Wilde changed the subject.

In the end, Zolf didn’t have to pluck up the courage to message Hamid – two weeks after turning back into a halfling, Hamid knocked on Zolf’s front door with a nervous expression. He was holding a duffle bag as big as his torso, and he was biting his lip.

‘Hi, Zolf,’ he said, when Zolf swung open his front door and stood there, staring mutely at him in surprise. ‘Can I… come in?’

He looked different – gone was his usual effortless charm and charisma. Instead he just looked squirrelly, shifting from foot to foot and picking at his nails. Zolf realised in shock that Hamid looked more like a frightened animal now, standing there fidgety and wild-eyed on his doorstep, than he ever had as a dragon.

‘Oh, yeah, of course,’ Zolf said, stepping back. ‘I’ll, uh, put the kettle on.’

Zolf bustled off to the kitchen and Hamid trailed after, dumping his bag in the narrow hallway but hanging up his coat with care. Zolf could feel Hamid’s eyes on him as he rummaged around the cupboards for the nice mugs while the kettle boiled.

Hamid said nothing until they were both sat down with a steaming mug, mirroring their positions from two weeks previous. He continued to say nothing, and merely fidgeted with his mug and shuffled his feet until Zolf finally broke the silence.

‘Not that I’m not happy to see you, Hamid, but… why are you here?’

Hamid shifted in his chair.

‘I, well,’ he said, spinning the mug round and round between his palms. One of his feet was drumming a staccato beat onto the lino floor. ‘I’ve been staying with Azu and Cel, but I didn’t want to overstay my welcome there, so I went back to my flat. But I don’t like – I don’t want to be alone.’

Hamid’s large, soulful brown eyes were wide. 

‘Is it… is it okay if I stay here, a little while? Just for a day or so,’ Hamid said, quickly, ‘I just… I don’t want to be alone in my flat.’

‘Bertie not at home?’ Zolf asked.

‘He’s already gone back on his tour,’ Hamid said. ‘I told him not to waste any more time on my account.’

Zolf frowned but didn’t comment – he didn’t want to rehash old arguments again, especially when Hamid was in such a delicate state.

‘Of course you can stay here,’ Zolf said instead, suddenly realising that he had never actually answered Hamid’s question. The change in Hamid was immediate – all the tension seemed to flow from him as his shoulders slumped with relief and he let out a low sigh.

‘Thanks, Zolf,’ he said, smiling genuinely now. ‘I know I was here a long time before, but I was a dragon, and I’m going to pay you back for all the things I ruined-‘

‘I don’t want your money, Hamid,’ Zolf said tiredly. ‘I just… I’m glad you’re safe.’

‘I… I also wanted to… well, Azu told me to talk to you,’ Hamid admitted. 

Zolf froze.

‘About what?’ he asked sharply. He ransacked his brain for what could be so serious as to merit an in-person conversation as prescribed by Azu. Had Hamid finally realised that Zolf felt something a lot stronger than friendship for Hamid – had Zolf let too much slip to the dragon and now Hamid was coming over to let him down gently?

‘About… why I instinctively hid here.’ Hamid was fidgeting again – he was avoiding Zolf’s eyes by staring into his mug intently. ‘As a dragon, I mean.’

Zolf held in his relief – his secret was still safe.

‘You said you felt safe, here,’ Zolf said, slowly. ‘Was that not-‘

‘No, that’s true! I do! But…’

Zolf braced himself for the inevitable. _But you shouldn’t read into that, Zolf,_ said the Hamid in his mind’s eye. _You’re just a good friend. Nothing more._

The real Hamid in front of Zolf was wringing his hands so hard they were rubbing red. Zolf was so wrapped up in his own imaginary heartbreak and embarrassment that he barely heard Hamid’s next words.

‘I know it’s not appropriate, with Oscar and everything, but Azu said I should tell you,’ Hamid said. ‘That I shouldn’t keep it hidden any longer, not when it’s affecting our friendship so much.’

Zolf frowned.

‘With Wilde? What does he have to do with this?’

‘I’m in love with you!’ Hamid said, all in a rush.

Silence fell – Zolf’s brain ticked over, blank and skipping over Hamid’s words again and again, like a stuck record. 

Hamid was standing now – Zolf didn’t remember him standing.

‘I know you’re with Oscar, and this is inappropriate, but I have to tell you. It’s why I came here, as a dragon – I knew I was safe with you, and I trusted you, because I love you.’

Zolf was torn between several strong emotions, but to his surprise it was laughter that won out and burst from his chest in deep, throaty chuckles.

Hamid drew himself up sniffily, ever proud.

‘I see,’ he said coldly, his face only betraying his hurt through his shining eyes. ‘If that’s what you-‘

‘No, no,’ Zolf said, hurriedly, standing quickly and reaching over to grasp Hamid’s hands. ‘Me and _Oscar_? What on earth gave you that idea?’

Hamid’s brow furrowed.

‘Bertie said…’

‘You believed what Bertie said?’

‘Well, you were spending a lot of time with him!’ Hamid squawked, defensively. ‘You never liked him before!’

‘He was going through some stuff and I helped him. We’re friends. Nothing more,’ Zolf said firmly. He squeezed Hamid’s hands gently. ‘And anyway, I was too hopelessly in love with someone else to fall in love with _Wilde_.’

Hamid blinked up at him.

‘You, you big idiot,’ Zolf said, tugging him closer into a hug. ‘I was in love with you.’

‘Was?’ Hamid asked, muffled, into Zolf’s shoulder.

Zolf drew back and took Hamid’s face in his hands, staring right into his eyes. Knowing his love was reciprocated was one hell of a drug – Zolf felt almost light-headed with happiness and confidence.

‘Am. Was then, am now. Will be in the future.’

‘That’s good,’ Hamid said, weakly.

Zolf had to kiss him.

It was a fine first kiss, as first kisses go. They were compatible heights, so no one had to particularly strain up or down, though it was a little wet from Hamid’s tears. They awkwardly bumped noses and had to readjust, learning the other’s face with theirs. Zolf’s hands, already on Hamid’s face, slipped lower to cradle his head – Hamid’s arms came up to clutch at the crook of Zolf’s forearms. Mechanically, it was unremarkable.

But emotionally, the dam burst in Zolf’s head. All those months of loneliness sloughed off to expose raw happiness beneath. The build-up of feeling towards Hamid, accrued from their very first meeting to the very moment before the kiss, all rushed out in a tsunami of catharsis. The overwhelming flood of reciprocated love threatened to drown him, his only lifeline the place where they touched.

They drew back after not enough, after too much, and could do nothing but smile at each other.

‘Um… can I still stay?’ Hamid asked.

‘Of course,’ Zolf said. ‘You can always stay here, Hamid.’

Hamid’s eyeliner was smudged beyond help, and there were tear tracks cutting lines into the light covering of foundation in his cheeks. His eyes were red from crying but he had never looked more beautiful to Zolf. 

*

Later, while they were curled up on the sofa Zolf couldn’t help but think back to their conversation and snort a laugh. Hamid rested his chin on Zolf’s chest and frowned at him.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Just – Oscar? _Really_?’

Hamid groaned and shoved his face into Zolf’s collarbone.

‘You hated him!’ Hamid moaned, only slightly muffled. He looked back up. ‘And suddenly you were all… buddy-buddy and having lunch together at the hospital. You always used to go on about how you wanted to drown him in a bucket! ’

‘I still do, sometimes,’ Zolf admitted. ‘But he’s… he’s matured, a bit. Going through that break-up really made him re-evaluate his life.’

‘Something like that would be good for Bertie,’ Hamid huffed. ‘He’s been awful lately.’

Zolf, very diplomatically, held his tongue.

‘How is this going to work?’ Hamid asked, looking up at Zolf with his large, soulful eyes. They were brown, not orange, but Zolf was struck with the similarity of the pseudodragon’s eyes. He couldn’t believe he’d not made the connection in all that time the pseudodragon was with him. It was uncanny.

‘What?’ Zolf, distracted. ‘Work?’

‘This. Us,’ Hamid said. ‘I can’t stay here forever.’

‘Well, of course not. And you won’t want to,’ Zolf said, sure. ‘You won’t feel like this forever, Hamid. You’re… you’re getting help, right?’ he asked.

Hamid nodded. 

‘As though Azu would let me get away with it if I didn’t,’ Hamid snorted. ‘She’s set me up with her mentor. Doctor Fairhands. They’re… good. They’re really good. It’s just…’

‘It’ll take time,’ Zolf said, nodding.

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, how about you stay here for a few days,’ Zolf said, slowly, ‘and then maybe we could both stay in your flat for a little while, just to make it feel more lived in. If you want, I mean,’ he said, hurriedly, suddenly aware he’d just invited himself to stay in someone else’s house.

But Hamid was nodding, his forehead wrinkled in thought.

‘That… would be really nice, actually,’ he said. 

‘Then that’s settled,’ Zolf said. ‘We’ll lower you in gently. It’s a work in progress, after all.’

‘ _I’m_ a work in progress, you mean,’ Hamid said.

‘Well.’ Zolf tucked his arms around Hamid and held him close. ‘We all are.’

*

Packing up the kitchen had turned into a real chore – Zolf hadn’t realised how many plates and cups he owned until he had to wrap them all individually in newspaper. His hands were stained with ink and he was pretty sure he’d wiped it all over his face and beard. He took a break to thoroughly scrub his hands clean and wash the smears off his face, and then he noticed the time.

It had been over an hour since Hamid had gone upstairs to start packing up the bedroom while Zolf took on the kitchen, and it was utterly silent from upstairs - Zolf couldn’t even hear footsteps creaking across the ceiling. 

Zolf approached the bottom of the stairs and peered up.

‘Hamid?’ he called. ‘You alright up there?’

There was no response.

Zolf stomped hurriedly up the stairs, panicking. What if Hamid had climbed up somewhere to reach a high object and fallen down and hurt himself? It had never happened before, of course – Hamid was perfectly capable of looking after himself – but Zolf was already high stress from the thought of the move and the packing, so he caught himself up in catastrophising as he burst into his bedroom.

‘Oh,’ he said, stopping short at the sight of the pseudodragon – of the real dragon, rather – curled up in a tight ball on top of a pile of his old jumpers, right in the centre of the bed. Its gentle snores were punctuated by little plumes of smoke rising from its nostrils. It looked much the same as it had done two years previous – shining brass, with dark-tipped horns and wickedly sharp claws. It looked a little bigger, a little more rounded, and its scales shone with a lustrous good health – in Zolf’s memory, the dragon had been smaller, with its scales dull and lifeless. 

Then Zolf realised that he’d fallen into the trap of seeing Hamid and the dragon as two separate entities again. The dragon _was_ Hamid, and Hamid was the dragon, and Zolf needed to remember that this time.

‘Hey, Hamid,’ Zolf said, gently, as he lowered himself down to sit on his bed. He reached out a hand to stroke down the dragon’s back, and it trilled gently before opening its eyes a fraction. 

‘Come on,’ Zolf said, battening down the hatches on his panic and trying to be calm and controlled. ‘You have time to be a dragon later – we’ve got packing to do, remember? You’ll need hands for packing.’

Zolf stopped stroking to wiggle his fingers in the dragon’s face – the dragon huffed a small cloud of smoke and then squirmed closer, nosing into his hands and trying to climb into his lap.

‘Come on, Hamid,’ Zolf said, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. ‘Change back for me now, please.’

The shift happened more gradually than it had two years ago, but it ended in the same way – Zolf once again had a lapful of naked halfling, though this time he’d seen Hamid without his clothes enough that it didn’t send him instantly into paroxysms of panic.

‘M’sorry,’ Hamid said, muffled, as he pressed his face into Zolf’s chest. ‘I… I don’t…’

‘It’s okay,’ Zolf said soothingly, stroking a hand down Hamid’s spine. ‘You don’t have to talk about it.’

‘No, I want to,’ Hamid said, sitting up properly and wiping his eyes. ‘I was packing your jumpers, and I found one I recognised – or the dragon did, anyway. And I was so tired, and stressed about the move, and worrying about everything, that the dragon just… took over.’

‘You’re that stressed about the move?’ Zolf asked. He had known that Hamid was stressed – they had both been, for the past week, especially since the first house they had loved and begun the process of buying had fallen through. Zolf knew that Hamid, like himself, was almost just waiting for something to go wrong again, even though they were physically moving in three days. He hadn’t realised that Hamid was so stressed as to relapse into being a dragon again.

‘Yes – no, kind of?’ Hamid pulled back a little from Zolf’s grasp. ‘Not about living with you – never that, Zolf.’

‘Oh,’ Zolf said, as he had been worrying exactly that.

‘Just… I don’t know, the first place fell through and we’ve put in our notices on my flat and your house… if it doesn’t work out, where would we go?’

‘Well,’ Zolf said, slowly, ‘if it didn’t work out, then I’m sure we could stay with Cel and Azu. They have a spare room, and they wouldn’t mind us staying for a little while.’

‘But all our stuff, and our furniture-‘

‘We could put it in storage,’ Zolf said. He ran his hand down Hamid’s back again, trying to soothe. ‘We can afford it. It’d be fine. We’ll be fine.’

‘Yeah.’ Hamid heaved a great sigh. ‘I know. I think the smell of the jumper just… affected me. I needed to be safe.’

‘They do say smell triggers the strongest memories,’ Zolf said.

‘I thought… I thought I was over all that,’ Hamid said, his voice cracking. ‘I thought I was past it.’

‘The drgaon’s part of you, though,’ Zolf said, slowly, ‘so in a way you’re never going to be _over_ that. And it comes out when you need protecting, so that’s a good thing.’

‘Yeah,’ Hamid said, a little snottily. Zolf rummaged in his pockets and sourced a tissue. He handed it to Hamid, who took it gratefully and blew his nose.

‘And anyway, I _like_ dragon you,’ Zolf aid. ‘Not as much as actual you, of course, but if you, uh, _need_ to be a dragon for a little while, well, I won’t complain.’

Hamid looked up at Zolf, eyes wide and damp.

‘I love you,’ he said, earnestly.

No matter how many times he heard it, it always made Zolf feel bashful.

‘I love you too,’ he said back, almost automatically.

‘So, how much packing did you get done downstairs?’ Hamid asked, springing to his feet and looking around for his clothes. 

Zolf, momentarily wrong-footed by the abrupt change in conversation topic, stuttered in response.

‘Not much,’ he said. ‘Still got a lot of cutlery to wrap.’

‘I’ll come help,’ Hamid said, with a wide smile, as he tugged on his socks. ‘I’d like to… stay close by, if that’s okay?’

‘That’s fine.’ Zolf waited ‘til Hamid was dressed, and then wrapped an arm around his shoulders and tucked him close to his side. ‘I wouldn’t want it any other way.’

**Author's Note:**

> Probably my last Zamid fic - at least for now - since I'm not a massive fan of Hamid's current character arc (or lack of) and Zoscar is clearly Ben's current endgame. Just... 2017 was a good time for Zamid, lads. Those were simpler times, when there were about five fans and about as many characters. 
> 
> Let me know if there's a trigger warning that needs tagging that I've missed - I've been looking at this for so long I can't see the wood for the trees anymore.


End file.
